Sex trafficking bill is turning into a proxy war over Google (Verge)

Read the full article by Sarah Jeong on TheVerge.com 

Since the Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act of 2017 was introduced in the Senate in August, tech companies and advocacy groups have been mobilizing in a battle to control its message. Digital rights organizations like the Electronic Frontier Foundation have called it “disastrous for free speech online,” asking its members to call their representatives in Congress. Meanwhile, supporters of the bill have emerged from unlikely quarters — including tech giant Oracle and Hollywood studio 21st Century Fox — and are using the legislation as an opportunity to take shots at Google.

SESTA carves a hole in section 230 of the Communication Decency Act, the liability shield that protects websites from being accountable for the user-generated content they host, by potentially expanding criminal liability. Although the law is intended to target sex trafficking and nefarious websites like Backpage, the vague wording of the bill “potentially implicates every online service that deals with user-generated content,” wrote Eric Goldman, a law professor at Santa Clara University.

SESTA allows state attorneys general to prosecute websites under state laws. The worry is that the most restrictive regime created by any one state would become the new baseline of regulation in the entirety of the United States. So, if South Carolina passed a law that required sites to authenticate all of its users or face liability for any posts that promoted sex trafficking, every website operating in the US would have to adhere to those rules as well.